Stupid Stunt and Great Car
06-13-2007, 10:59 PM
#1
Safety Car
Thread Starter
Stupid Stunt and Great Car
Rushing home after a large rain storm several hours earlier. Allegedly there was a small tornado touch down a few hours earlier, and there was certainly a lot of heavy rain. Roads were dry, sun was out, skies were blue. Nav Traffic indicated slowdowns on the major freeways and some traffic light outages in several intersections around the county.
Took a little used route by the new Air and Space Museum by Dulles Airport and was entering a high speed secondary road where people regularly travel 65 or 70 on posted 55. There was a large area of standing water which I saw at the last moment and thought it was just a very large large puddle (covering more than 3/4 of the width of the road, and maybe five car lengths long) just covering the surface of the road. I went through the at high speed. It was not just a surface puddle but several inches of standing water, especially on the passenger side. The car hydroplaned and slewed to the right. I had impressions of huge sheets of water flying high above the car, the windshield was totally obscured. I had visions of the car spinning out and smashing into a concrete barrier even though I was driving down a straightaway. The torque from the slew to the right was enough so that for several minutes later I felt it in my neck and back.
I don't know if it was the AWD, the VSA, both, nothing--although the car slewed to the right, I tried to steer it back left and straight and it pretty much kept itself straight, and went through the standing water, and broke out into the sunshine and dry road beyond. All the water blew off the windshield without the need to use the wipers (like I had time to think about that). And all the cars on the road I was about to enter were fading away like they were braking in anticipation of something happening.
Maybe any car would have done as well, but I feel as if I avoided a huge accident, especially had I been in my 2G Legend, and that this is indeed a great car, with great control, even on the hairy edge.
The incident serves to also highlight stupid driving behavior on my part, and was a great for behavior modification, too.
Took a little used route by the new Air and Space Museum by Dulles Airport and was entering a high speed secondary road where people regularly travel 65 or 70 on posted 55. There was a large area of standing water which I saw at the last moment and thought it was just a very large large puddle (covering more than 3/4 of the width of the road, and maybe five car lengths long) just covering the surface of the road. I went through the at high speed. It was not just a surface puddle but several inches of standing water, especially on the passenger side. The car hydroplaned and slewed to the right. I had impressions of huge sheets of water flying high above the car, the windshield was totally obscured. I had visions of the car spinning out and smashing into a concrete barrier even though I was driving down a straightaway. The torque from the slew to the right was enough so that for several minutes later I felt it in my neck and back.
I don't know if it was the AWD, the VSA, both, nothing--although the car slewed to the right, I tried to steer it back left and straight and it pretty much kept itself straight, and went through the standing water, and broke out into the sunshine and dry road beyond. All the water blew off the windshield without the need to use the wipers (like I had time to think about that). And all the cars on the road I was about to enter were fading away like they were braking in anticipation of something happening.
Maybe any car would have done as well, but I feel as if I avoided a huge accident, especially had I been in my 2G Legend, and that this is indeed a great car, with great control, even on the hairy edge.
The incident serves to also highlight stupid driving behavior on my part, and was a great for behavior modification, too.
06-14-2007, 08:39 PM
#3
Safety Car
Thread Starter
The other funny thing I thought about minutes after the incident was, good thing I did not have a CAI, or I would have been SOL. An odd thing to pop into my head!
06-15-2007, 12:13 PM
#5
Originally Posted by Chas2
The other funny thing I thought about minutes after the incident was, good thing I did not have a CAI, or I would have been SOL. An odd thing to pop into my head!
Plus it makes a cool whistling sound when your car changes gears.
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